


I Can't Feel You

by arsenicarose



Series: DreamNotFound COMFORT Fics [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Repression, Helping Someone Out of Their Shell, In which George is cold and Dream is warm, M/M, Podfic Available, Repression, Wow I don't know how to tag this lol, numb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicarose/pseuds/arsenicarose
Summary: George doesn't feel, doesn't allow himself to feel. Dream feels everything.(AKA George is emotionally repressed and Dream drowns him love until he can feel it)
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: DreamNotFound COMFORT Fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050791
Comments: 34
Kudos: 729
Collections: MCYT, The Hall™





	I Can't Feel You

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [[Podfic] I Can't Feel You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29604312) by [The Reader (arsenicarose)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicarose/pseuds/The%20Reader). 



George doesn’t feel, doesn’t allow himself to feel. He is closed off, careful. Outwardly, he smiles, he laughs, he enjoys, but it never quite touches him. Nothing does. He isn’t sure if it’s that “stiff upper lip” thing that Americans always made fun of him for or just something he adopted himself, but he couldn't help but be a little cold.

When he was younger, he would spend his time buried in distraction. That is how he learned to feel again, after he cut himself off from it. He had to find some way to let a little out, to savor something, but it also had to be safe. Everything fictionalized and intangible, so it couldn’t hurt him.

He could approach real happiness and satisfaction from beating a game, especially if it was with friends. There was something about camaraderie and measurable, leveled achievement that made him feel good. It felt more real than the strange uncertainty of accomplishment in real life.

He would watch movies with heartbreaking scenes so he could cry. There were reasons to cry in his own life, as in most people’s, but he just didn’t. It never even occurred to him that crying was something he could do, at least when it came to things that happened to _him_. But for the people in the movie? He would bawl. He would tear through tissue boxes and fill trash cans and sob. Sometimes, he would set up a tear filled line up of things to watch, to just to clear what was gumming up the works. 

He would read for hours and hours, imagining himself in each of the worlds. He would insert himself for various characters, whomever he connected with, and live their story. He fought in huge battles, he healed from traumatic events, he fell in love over and over and over again. It was perfect, and he would reread the best ones, slipping into his favorite character like a hoodie. He would wrap himself in them and pretend to be happy.

Those were the ways he let himself feel. He treasured these little things, these escapes he created for himself. That was how he connected with the full depth and breadth of his emotions (or tried to anyway), with tumbling forays into false worlds, where everything he felt was safe. No one could judge him if they didn’t exist or couldn’t reach him.

That was why Dream surprised him so much. Dream _felt_ things. Dream threw emotion around like it was free (which, George supposed, it was, but it didn’t feel that way). Dream dripped with praise and compliments and excitement and anger and sadness. He confessed to George early on what made him cry, and his commitment to their friendship was so steadfast and immediate that it took George’s breath away.

He couldn’t hope to keep up.

But Dream was as patient as he was kind (so almost completely, but sometimes not). He could feel that the reluctance wasn’t from a lack of attachment, but from an anxiety unnamed. He teased George regularly, but didn't push (too much), and tried to hear when it had gone too far. Despite his blustering and huge, loud existence, he was careful with George.

And George started to feel it.

One day, he realized how much it meant to him that Dream cared enough to understand and try. It came as a shock to him, a punch in the gut, almost painful. Something that pricked through his defensive layer and landed in his heart, sending an electric pulse through his whole body. He liked having someone pay attention to him, even if it scared the living daylights out of him.

That feeling grew, slowly. He knew how Dream liked to express affection, the way Dream and Sapnap would hang off each other, despite not being in each other’s physical presence. Dream threw love down like a warm blanket, layer after layer until you were completely bundled up.

He did the same to George, but left him room to move, to escape, to not feel trapped.

In return, George tried to feel, or at least fake it. It took time, a _long_ time, but Dream could see the repeated attempts, and that was enough for him.

By the time their Youtube channels started popping off, there was a kind of understanding. George had gotten better about communicating, and Dream had found that slot that George reserved for careful love. They fit together well, and everyone saw it. As they blew up, everyone talked about their friendship, their closeness, and were they more?

They hadn’t ever really talked about it.

Another feeling grew from this, though, a new sense of pride and accomplishment, but real. He was becoming recognized as a real coder, and he was getting measurably better at the game that was his bread and butter. Every day, his views, subscribers, likes, etc. would go up, and, with that, so did the money in his bank account. He wasn’t as successful as Dream (how could he be, against explosive charisma and a honeyed voice?), but that didn’t matter to him. He was doing _well,_ measurably so, and that was all he needed.

He could tell as he gushed to Dream about their success that his friend could see it too. George could almost hear the knowing smile and pride from Dream’s voice as they talked about how well things were going. Dream had picked up on all these insecurities, though they had never been said, and it was so good to watch George blossom like this. George had never been one to _gush_ before.

Their relationship was made only stronger, and thus the brand was born. George and Dream were almost always in videos together, sometimes with Sapnap, sometimes without. There were mean people in the fandom, of course, but George was accepted by the group. They, collectively, liked him as he was, just as Dream had, and that made things even easier.

Time passed, and they had their first big fight. They had fought before, but nothing like this. Dream, almost enraged, had snapped at him, refusing to share the one thing George wanted from him: his face. To the empty server, to the people watching with bated breath, he finally said it where it could be recorded. “I love you, Dream.”

With that, he shut off the stream and cried. It hit him like a truck to the face. He double and triple checked that he was not connected to anything before he let himself collapse. He literally _collapsed_ to the ground, curled in the fetal position on the carpet, staring down the mouth of a deep abyss of depression and fear. The tears racked his body, and he couldn’t stop shaking.

It was the first time he had cried for himself, and it _hurt_. It hurt more than anything he had ever felt.

But when it was over, when the final tear fell and he could actually feel the sun again, he felt so _good_. Of course, he was still terribly anxious and sad about what had happened between him and Dream, but it felt like excising a wound. The tears he had cried for movies had only brushed the surface, but that event had ripped him open and pulled out years of neglected rot.

He wasn’t cured, but it was better in a way he couldn’t even name.

Of course, they made up later. Dream apologized for snapping, George apologized for pushing (for needing), and they both moved on, closer than ever. George never told Dream about how he cried, because he wouldn’t understand how crying like that could be good.

At some point, Dream would send him a photo, hurried and fuzzy, but George treasured it. Eventually, cut off faces and blurred features became clearer, until George had an image in his head. Then, pictures became video clips. Finally, it was facetime, and George got to see the lips that matched that honeyed voice, the faces Dream made when he collapsed from wheezing, the look in his eyes when he would push the compliments a little extra far, just because George needed to hear it (even if it made him uncomfortable). Life was good.

When love came, it wasn’t painful or sharp. It wasn’t a stinging realization or a sack of bricks to his chest that left him panting for breath. It was small. A tiny musical note played in the back of the cacophony of his life, ignored but there, and begging to be heard. It had been there for a while, though how long was hard to measure, and it was just present.

Sometimes, George could almost feel it. There had been a lot of little moments that made it swell, but the colorblind glasses really pushed it to the forefront. He was seeing the world (and Dream) with new eyes, finally experiencing contrast and depth that he had been lacking before. Dream was on a secret facetime while he experienced this new reality, and George couldn’t help but peek over at him, just reassuring himself that support was still there. George had been so _excited_. This was something he had never even thought to experience, and here he was, doing it with his best friend.

In one of the deleted scenes, Dream had even called him cute.

It touched him a little there. There was something more to it than "just friends," at least for George, but it wasn’t enough to get him to realize it, not on its own.

It grew from there, as George saw more and more how much his friend was to him, how much he meant. One day, he realized that it had expanded beyond simple friendship, and it choked him. It was too late to do anything about it, and it was terrifying.

He didn’t let himself care about people like that.

So, of course, he told Dream nothing of what was happening, and things continued as normal, but every time Dream flirted, it hit a different spot, and when Dream said, “I _love_ you, George,” in earnest, it would disintegrate him. He was becoming a mess, a blushing mess.

Admitting the feeling was love, romantic love, took a long time, or at least it felt that way. Every day was a day where George ignored the blossoming pink flowers as they burst inside his gut. He pretended that Dream’s voice wasn’t something to look forward to and that Dream’s face didn’t steal his ability to breathe. 

George will _never_ admit to the thing that finally turned him, that finally forced him to realize what was happening (far too embarrassing), but it did happen. He finally put a name to it, and he even said it out loud to himself. He was in _love_ with Dream.

He was in love with Dream.

It was shocking to say the least. He had felt something about Dream the entire time they had been friends (even if it was just annoyance), but this was so clear and strong. Like the last of his walls had been crumbled by a golden swath of Dream’s affection, and now he could feel.

It made him a little giddy too. Their entire relationship had been spent helping George open up to the world, and it felt so good. There were still roadblocks and locked off places, but this felt like a huge step in the right direction.

From that point on, he couldn’t help but feel. He giggled more freely, teased more readily, and joined in on the fun. Everyone noticed it, and everyone approved.

Whether or not he told Dream (in a hushed whisper, by the light of the moon, as they sat together, alone on teamspeak), and whether or not it went well (it did), is George’s business. It was a weight lifted off his shoulders to know it, and he was free.

This new freedom showed in everything he did. When George pranked Dream and Sapnap by letting them die on the same block, over and over, they couldn’t even really be mad at him. They had never heard him laugh _so hard_ , so heartily before. It was contagious, and they laughed with him, even as they died repeatedly. When George got Quackity to meow for him and collapsed back into his chair, laughing uproariously, just letting people see how much he enjoyed it. There was no shame in it, he was just delighted. He was generally just looser and happier, even starting the flirting on his own sometimes.

Those from the outside might not be able to guess what caused it, what changed this boisterous kid to a reserved teen to an adult with some balance, but his friends knew, and in quiet murmurs on sleep calls, Dream would tell George how proud he was.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is not to reduce the contributions that George has made to Dream's life, it's just from George's perspective. Also, I don't actually know any of this to be true lol.


End file.
